Empire Earth a real-time strategy game that lets you control the destiny of a fledgling civilization through 500,000 years of human history, developed by Stainless Steel Studios, a company founded (1998) 0by Rick Goodman, the creator/lead designer of Microsoft's award-winning and best-selling Age of Empires game. Although Empire Earth is similar to Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (game's controls, interface features, and even some of its keyboard shortcuts), it's really much more than just only a sequel to AoE2. The gameplay is quite different, and takes some time to get used to if you are an Age of Kings player.
Empire Earth features 12 historical Epochs (Prehistoric, Stone, Copper, Bronze, Dark, Medieval, Renaissance, Imperial, Industrial, Atomic, Digital, and Nano - spans over 500,000 years), from the discovery of fire to laser technology and beyond), various terrain types, including marsh, desert, gravel, snow, and ice, over 200 different kinds of combat units, battle on land, air, and sea with cavalry, cannon, battleships, submarines, helicopters, and even thermonuclear ballistic missiles, later with robotic and anti-gravity units using energy weapons. In addition you can customize your military units using up to 10 adjustable attributes, such as attack strength, armor, and hit points, deplete opponents' populations by capturing and enslaving their citizens, unleash terrible calamities on your opponents, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and plagues, research scores of exciting technologies and also customize your own civilization (you can choose from 21 different civilizations) by choosing from over 100 attributes or choose a predefined civilization. Enough? Hehe I think so :) If you like RTS go buy it! This game is definitely one of the best RTS on the market. Download playable demo (93MB).